Navy counting on new stealth ship. At $3 billion per ship it’s a hard sell in Congress, but the U.S. Navy is hoping its fancy new boat can sneak up on China and shoot electromagnetic “railguns” at them. Don’t we already have a fleet of stealth ships… called “submarines?”
This post was last modified on January 26, 2021
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a 3 billion dollar booze cruise...
What we really need to do is to retool and update one of our older designs, like the Sturgeon class submarine which, incidentally, is still a way better ASW platform than the Los Angeles and Virginia classes. You could probably make 3 or 4 subs for every one of these gold-plated tin cans.
Just act like we built them, they're stealth afterall
Gotta love the price tag, 3 billion for a warship that could be sunk by a surplus Russian SS-22 Sunburn missile. Of course the Chinese have plenty of them, and they are considered the most lethal anti-ship missile out there.
If they're planning to deploy the bulk of our navy to Asia, then they must believe we won't have to spend so much time assuring the oil gets out of the Persian Gulf. When is the US going to open up the federal lands to drilling? When is the US going to approve the pipeline from Canada? When is the EPA going to get out of the way of the energy producers?
I read about railgun tech 30 years ago or so. Talking to a couple of the smart guys I knew, this seemed to be the way to go. In the past few years now, there have been a few shows that included some of the developments of these incredible weapons. It took a while and I'm sure there will be improvements shortly after they actually employ it. Pretty cool stuff. Here's some now - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWHMIz-wTa4&feature=related
I don't have a problem with the railguns. Ships are always re-arming with the latest and greatest. I just don't believe that a stealth ship is going to be worth more than a warm bucket of spit. It's a giant warship. It's never going to be hard to see, no matter what the whizbang guys trying to sell it to the government are saying.
Let's not have a double standard here. We can't boo Demoncrats who slash military budgets while booing the military's use of said budget. New technology does not magically pop into usefulness - it comes from years of terrible ideas that morph into good ones.
I'm still lamenting the loss of the Comanche stealth helicopter.
Size isn't a factor here. It's the ocean - it is huge. Radar is used to spot surface ships - and is the primary method by which anti-ship missiles are guided. If the ship is truly 'stealth' then it will be harder to detect and destroy.
Our enemies are moving forward - why can't we? Let's just hope one of these doesn't crash and end up in Iranian hands...
Who's the leader with the club that's used on you and me....M-I-C-H-E-M-O-U-S-E...Michemouse....Michemouse
That's very good!
It will get approved so Obama can claim he supports the military.
Why this when we have aircraft carriers, cruise missiles and drones? Another wast of tax dollars so some Admiral can get a hard on.
I'm just thinking: if you had a sneakiness contest between a submarine and this new stealth ship, the submarine would smear the stealth ship all over the ocean. Those guys spend their whole careers sitting on the ocean bottom identifying and pinpointing sounds. They can tell a female tuna from a male tuna. Does the Navy really think they're going to sneak up on anybody with a destroyer? I'd love to know who stands to make money from this boondoggle.
Some shipbuilder in Chicago!